The Scottish Chiefs

Chapter XXXIV - Stirling Castle

The prisoners who had been taken with Montgomery were
lodged behind the town, and the wounded carried into the Abbey of Cambus-Kenneth;
but when Edwin came to move that earl himself, he found him too faint with loss
of blood to sit a horse to Snawdoun. He therefore ordered a litter; and so
conveyed his brave prisoner to that palace of the kings of Scotland in Stirling.

The priests in Wallace's army not only exercised the
Levitical but the good Samaritan's functions, and they soon obeyed the young
knight's summons to dress the wounds of Montgomery.

Messengers, meanwhile, arrived from Wallace, acquainting
his chieftains in Stirling with the surrender of De Warenne's army. Hence no
surprise was created in the breast of the wounded earl when he saw his commander
enter the palace as the prisoner of the illustrious Scot.

Montgomery held out his hand to the lord warden in silence,
and with a flushed cheek.

"Blush not, my noble friend!" cried De Warenne; "these
wounds speak more eloquently than a thousand tongues, the gallantry with which
you maintained the sword that fate compelled you to surrender. But I, without a
scratch, how can I meet the unconquered Edward? And yet it was not for myself I
feared: my brave and confiding soldiers were in all my thoughts; for I saw it
was not to meet an army I led them, but against a whirlwind, a storm of war,
with which no strength that I commanded could contend."

While the English generals thus conversed, Edwin's
impatient heart yearned to be again at the side of Wallace; and gladly resigning
the charge of his noble prisoner to Sir Alexander Ramsay, as soon as he observed
a cessation in the conversation of the two earls, he drew near Montgomery to
take his leave.

"Farewell, till we meet again!" said the young earl,
pressing his hand; "you have been a young brother rather than an enemy, to me."

"Because," returned Edwin, "I follow the example of my
general, who would willingly be the friend of all mankind."

Warenne looked at him with surprise: "And who are you, who,
in that stripling form, utters gallant sentiments which might grace the maturest
years?"

"And the son of him," asked De Warenne, "who, with Sir
William Wallace, was the first to mount Dumbarton walls?"

At these words the cheeks of Edwin were suffused with a
more animated bloom. At the moment when his courage was distinguished on the
heights of Dumbarton, by the vowed friendship of Wallace, he had found himself
beloved by the bravest and most amiable of beings; and in his light he felt both
warmth and brightness; but this question of De Warenne, conveyed to him that he
had found fame himself; that he was there publicly acknowledged to be an object
not unworthy of being called the brother of Sir William Wallace!-and, casting
down his eyes, beaming with exultation, from the fixed gaze of De Warenne, he
answered, "I am that happy Ruthven, who had the honor to mount Dumbarton Rock by
the side of my general; and from his hand there received the stroke of
knighthood."

De Warenne rose, much agitated: "If such be the boys of
Scotland need we wonder, when the spirit of resistance is roused in the nation,
that our strength should wither before its men?"

"At least," said Montgomery, whose admiration of what
passed seemed to reanimate his languid faculties, "it deprives defeat of its
sting, when we are conscious we yielded to power that was irresistible. But, my
lord," added he, "if the courage of this youth amazes you, what will you say
ought to be the fate of this country? what to be the crown of Sir William
Wallace's career, when you know the chain of brave hearts by which he is
surrounded? Even tender woman loses the weakness of her sex when she belongs to
him." Earl de Warenne, surprised at the energy with which he spoke, looked at
him with an expression that told him so. "Yes," continued he, "I witnessed the
heroism of Lady Wallace, when she defended the character of her husband in the
midst of an armed host, and preserved the secret of his retreat inviolate. I saw
that loveliest of women, whom the dastard Heselrigge slew."

"Disgrace to knighthood!" cried Edwin, with indignant
vehemence; "if you were a spectator of that bloody deed, retire from this house;
go to Cambus-Kenneth--anywhere; but leave this city before the injured Wallace
arrives; blast not his eyes with a second sight of one who could have beheld his
wife murdered."

Every eye was now fixed on the commanding figure of the
young Edwin, who stood with the determination of being obeyed breathing in every
look. De Warenne then at once saw the possibility of so gentle a creature being
transformed into the soul of enterprise, into the fearless and effective
soldier.

Lord Montgomery held out his hand to Edwin. "By this right
arm, I swear, noble youth, that had I been on the spot when Heselrigge, lifted
his sword against the breast of Lady Wallace, I would have sheathed my sword in
his. It was before then that I saw that matchless woman; and offended with my
want of severity in the scrutiny I had made at Ellerslie for its chief.
Heselrigge sent me back to Ayr. Arnuf quarreled with me there, on the same
subject; and I immediately retired in disgust to England."

"Then how? you ought to be Sir Gilbert Hambledon?" replied
Edwin; "but whoever you are, as you were kind to the Lady Marion, I cannot but
regret my late hasty charge; and for which I beseech your pardon."

Montgomery took his hand, and pressed it. "Generous
Ruthven, your warmth is too honorable to need forgiveness. I am that Sir Gilbert
Hambledon; and had I remained so, I should not now be in Scotland. But in my
first interview with the Prince of Wales, after my accession to the Earldom of
Montgomery, his highness told me, it had been rumoured from Scotland that I was
disloyal in my heart to my king. 'And to prove the falsehood of such
calumniators,' continued the prince, 'I appoint you second in command there to
the Earl de Warenne.' To have refused to fight against Sir William Wallace,
would have been to have accused myself of treason. And while I respected the
husband of the murdered Lady Marion, I yet condemned him as an insurgent; and
with the same spirit you follow him in the field, I obeyed the commands of my
sovereign."

"Lord Montgomery," returned Edwin, "I am rejoiced to see
one who proves to me what my general, wronged as he has been, yet always
inculcates-that all the Southrons are not base and cruel! When he knows who is
indeed his prisoner, what recollections will it awaken! But till you and he
again meet, I shall not intimate to him the melancholy satisfaction he is to
enjoy, for, with the remembrances it will arouse, your presence must bring the
antidote."

The brave youth then telling Ramsay in what parts of the
palace the rest of the lords were to be lodged, with recovered composure
descended to the courtyard, to take horse for Tor Wood. He was galloping along,
under the bright light of the moon, when he heard a squadron on full speed
approaching, and presently Murray appeared at its head. "Hurrah, Edwin!" cried
he; "well met! We are come to demand the instant surrender of the citadel.
Hilton's division has surrendered!"

The two barons had indeed come up about half an hour after
Earl de Warenne's division was discomfited. Sir William Wallace had sent forward
to the advancing enemy two heralds, bearing the colors De Valence and
Montgomery, with the captive banner of De Warenne, and requiring the present
division to lay down its army also. The sight of these standards was sufficient
to assure Hilton there was no deceit in the embassy. The nature of his position
precluded retreat; and not seeing any reason for ten thousand men disputing the
day with a power to whom fifty thousand had just surrendered, he and his
compeer, with the reluctance of veterans, embraced the terms of surrender.

The instant Hilton put his argent banner* into the victor's
hand, Wallace knew that the castle must now be his; he had discomfited all who
could have maintained it against him. Impatient to apprise Lord Mar and his
family of their safety, he dispatched Murray with a considerable escort to
demand its surrender.

Murray gladly obeyed, and now, accompanied by Edwin, with
the standards of Cressingham and De Warenne trailing in the dust, he arrived
before the castle, and summoned the lieutenant to the walls. But that officer,
well aware of what was going to happen, feared to appear. From the battlements
of the keep he had seen the dreadful conflict on the banks of the Forth-he had
seen the thousands of De Warenne pass before the conqueror. To punish his
treachery, in not only having suffered Cressingham to steal out under the
armistice, but upholding also the breaking of his word to surrender at sunset,
the terrified officer believed that Wallace was now come to put the whole
garrison to the sword.

At the first sight of Murray's approaching squadron, the
lieutenant hurried to Lord Mar, to offer him immediate liberty if he would go
forth to Wallace and treat with him to spare the lives of the garrison. Closed
up in a solitary dungeon, the earl knew naught of what was occurring without;
and when the Southron entered, he expected it was to lead him again to the death
which had been twice averted. But the pale and trembling lieutenant had no
sooner spoken the first word than Mar discerned it was a suppliant, not an
executioner, he saw before him, and he was even promising that clemency from
Wallace, which he knew dwelt in his heart, when Murray's trumpet sounded.

The lieutenant started, horror-struck. "It is now too late!
We have not made the first overture, and there sounds the death-bell of this
garrison! I saved your life, earl!" cried he, imploringly, to Lord Mar; "when
the enraged Cressingham commanded me to pull the cord which would have launched
you into eternity. I disobeyed him! For my sake, then, preserve this garrison,
and accompany me to the ramparts."

The chains were immediately knocked off the limbs of Lord
Mar, and the lieutenant presenting him with a sword, they appeared together on
the battlements. As the declining moon shone on their backs, Murray did not
discern that it was his uncle who mounted the walls; but calling to him in a
voice which declared there was no appeal, pointed to the humbled colors of
Edward, and demanded the instant surrender of the citadel.

"Let it be, then with the pledge of Sir William Wallace's
mercy?" cried the venerable earl.

"With every pledge, Lord Mar," returned Murray, now
joyfully recognizing his uncle, "which you think safe to give."

"Then the keys of the citadel are yours," cried the
lieutenant; "I only ask the lives of my garrison."

This was granted, and immediately preparations were made
for the admission of the Scots. As the enraptured Edwin heard the heavy chains
of the portcullis drawn up, and the massy bolts of the huge doors grating in
their guards, he thought of his mother's liberty, of his father's joy, in
pressing her again in his arms; and hastening to the tower where Lord Ruthven
held watch over the now sleeping De Valance, he told him all that had happened.
"Go, my father," added he; "enter with Murray, and be the first to open the
prison doors of my mother."

Lord Ruthven embraced his son. "My dear Edwin! this
sacrifice to my feelings is worthy of you. But I have a duty to perform,
superior even to the tenderest private ones. I am planted hereby my commander;
and shall I quit my station, for any gratification, till he gives me leave? No,
my son! Be you my representative to your mother; and while my example teaches
you, above all earthly considerations, to obey your honor, those tender embraces
will show her what I sacrifice to duty."

Edwin no longer urged his father, and leaving his
apartment, flew to the gate of the inner ballium. It was open; and Murray
already stood on the platform before the keep, receiving the keys to the
garrison.

"Blessed sight!" cried the earl, to his nephew. "When I put
the banner of Mar into your unpracticed hand, little could I expect that, in the
course of four months, I should see my brave Andrew receive the keys of proud
Stirling from its commander!"

Murray smiled, while his plumed head bowed gratefully to
his uncle, and turning to the lieutenant, "Now," said he, "lead me to the Ladies
Mar and Ruthven that I may assure them they are free."

The gates of the keep were now unclosed, and the lieutenant
conducted his victors along a gloomy passage, to a low door, studded with knobs
of iron. As he drew the bolt, he whispered to Lord Mar, "These severities are
the hard policy of Governor Cressingham."

He pushed the door slowly open, and discovered a small,
miserable cell-its walls, of rugged stone, having no other covering than the
incrustations which time, and many a dripping winter, had strewn over their
vaulted service. On the ground, on a pallet of straw, lay a female figure in a
profound sleep. But the light which the lieutenant held, streaming full upon the
uncurtained slumberer, she started, and, with a shriek of terror at the sight of
so many armed men, discovered the pallid features of the Countess of Mar. With
an anguish which hardly the freedom he was going to bestow could ameliorate, the
earl rushed forward, and, throwing himself beside her, caught her in his arms.

"Are we, then, to die?" cried she, in a voice of horror.
"Has Wallace abandoned us? Are we to perish? Heartless-heartless man!"

Overcome by his emotions, the earl could only strain her to
his breast in speechless agitation. Edwin saw a picture of his mother's
sufferings, in the present distraction of the countess; and he felt his powers
of utterance locked up; but Lord Andrew, whose ever-light heart was gay the
moment he was no longer unhappy, jocosely answered, "My fair aunt, there are
many hearts to die by your eyes before that day! and, meanwhile, I come from Sir
William Wallace-to set you free!"

The name of Wallace, and the intimation that he had sent to
set her free, drove every former thought of death and misery from her mind;
again the ambrosial gales of love seemed to breathe around her-she saw not her
prison walls; she felt herself again in his presence; and in a blissful trance,
rather endured than participated in the warm congratulations of her husband on
their mutual safety.

Edwin and Murray turned to follow the lieutenant, who,
preceding them, stopped at the end of the gallery. "Here," said he, "is Lady
Ruthven's habitation; and-alas! not better than the countess'." While he spoke,
he threw open the door, and discovered its sad inmate also asleep. But when the
glad voice of her son pierced her ear-when his fond embraces clung to her bosom,
her surprise and emotions were almost insupportable. Hardly crediting her
senses, that he whom she had believed was safe in the cloisters of St. Colomba,
could be within the dangerous walls of Stirling; that it was his mailed breast
that pressed against her bosom; that it was his voice she heard exclaiming,
"Mother, we come to give you freedom!" all appeared to her like a dream of
madness.

She listened, she felt him, she found her cheek wet with
his rapturous tears. "Am I in my right mind?" cried she, looking at him with a
fearful, yet overjoyed countenance; "am I not mad? Oh! tell me," cried she,
turning to Murray, and the lieutenant, "is this my son that I see, or has terror
turned my brain?"

"It is indeed your son, your Edwin, my very self," returned
he, alarmed at the expression of her voice and countenance. Murray gently
advanced, and kneeling down by her, respectfully took her hand. "He speaks
truth, my dear madam. It is your son Edwin. He left his convent, to be a
volunteer with Sir William Wallace. He has covered himself with honor on the
walls of Dumbarton; and here also a sharer in his leader's victories, he is come
to set you free."

At this explanation, which, being given in the sober
language of reason, Lady Ruthven believed, she gave way to the full happiness of
her soul, and falling on the neck of her son, embraced him with a flood of
tears: "And thy father, Edwin, where is he? Did not the noble Wallace rescue him
from Ayr?"

"He did, and he is here." Edwin then repeated to his mother
the affectionate message of his father, and the particulars of his release.
Perceiving how happily they were engaged, Murray, now with a flutter in his own
bosom, rose from his knees, and requested the lieutenant to conduct him to Lady
Helen Mar.

His guide led the way by a winding staircase into a stone
gallery, where letting Lord Andrew into a spacious apartment, divided in the
midst by a vast screen of carved cedar-wood, he pointed to a curtained entrance.
"In that chamber," said he, "lodges the Lady Helen."

"Ah, my poor cousin," exclaimed Murray; "though she seems
not to have tasted the hardships of her parents, she has shared their misery, I
do not doubt." While he spoke, the lieutenant bowed in silence, and Murray
entered alone. The chamber was magnificent, and illumined by a lamp which hung
from the ceiling. He cautiously approached the bed, fearing too hastily to
disturb her, and gently pulling aside the curtains, beheld vacancy. An
exclamation of alarm had almost escaped him, when observing a half-open door at
the other side of the apartment, he drew toward it, and there beheld his cousin,
with her back to him, kneeling before a crucifix. She spoke not, but the fervor
of her action manifested how earnestly she prayed. He moved behind her, but she
heard him not; her whole soul was absorbed in the success of her petition; and
at last raising her clasped hands in a paroxysm of emotion, she exclaimed,-"If
that trumpet sounded the victory of the Scots, then, Power of Goodness! receive
thy servant's thanks. But if De Warenne have conquered, where De Valence has
failed; if all whom I love be lost to me here, take me then to thyself, and let
my freed spirit fly to their embraces in heaven!"

"Ay, and on earth too, thou blessed angel!" cried Murray,
throwing himself toward her. She started from her knees, and with such a cry as
the widow of Sarepta uttered when she embraced her son from the dead, Helen
threw herself on the bosom of her cousin, and closed her eyes in a blissful
swoon-for even while every outward sense seemed fled, the impression of joy
played about her heart; and the animated throbbings of Murray's breast, while he
pressed her in his arms, at last aroused her to recollection. Her glistening and
uplifted eyes told all the happiness, all the gratitude of her soul.

"My father? All are safe?" demanded she.

"All, my best beloved!" answered Murray, forgetting in his
powerful emotions of his heart, that what he felt, and what he uttered, were
beyond even a cousin's limits: "My uncle, the countess, Lord and Lady
Ruthven-all are safe."

"And Sir William Wallace?" cried she; "you do not mention
him. I hope no ill-"

"He is conqueror here!" interrupted Murray. "He has subdued
every obstacle between Berwick and Stirling; and he has sent me hither to set
you and the rest of the dear prisoners free."

Helen's heart throbbed with a new tumult as he spoke. She
longed to ask whether the unknown knight from whom she had parted in the
hermit's cell, had ever joined Sir William Wallace. She yearned to know that he
yet lived. At the thought of the probability of his having fallen in some of
these desperate conflicts, her soul seemed to gasp for existence; and dropping
her head on her cousin's shoulder, "Tell me, Andrew," said she, and there she
paused, with an emotion for which she could not account to herself.

"Nothing particular," said she, covered with blushes; "but
did you fight alone in these battles? Did no other knight but Sir William
Wallace?"

"Many, dearest Helen," returned Murray, enraptured at a
solicitude which he appropriated to himself. "Many knights joined our arms. All
fought in a manner worthy of their leader, and thanks to Heaven, none have
fallen."

"Thanks, indeed," cried Helen; and with a hope she dared
hardly whisper to herself, of seeing the unknown knight in the gallant train of
the conqueror, she falteringly said, "Now, Andrew, lead me to my father."

Murray would perhaps have required a second bidding, had
not Lord Mar, impatient to see his daughter, appeared with the countess at the
door of the apartment. Hastening toward them, she fell on the bosom of her
father; and while she bathed his face and hands with her glad tears, he, too,
wept, and mingled blessings with his caresses. No coldness here met his paternal
heart: no distracting confusions tore her from his arms; no averted looks, by
turns, alarmed and chilled the bosom of tenderness. All was innocence and duty
in Helen's breast; and every ingenuous action showed its affection and its joy.
The estranged heart of Lady Mar had closed against him; and though he suspected
not its wanderings, he felt the unutterable difference between the warm
transports of his daughter and the frigid gratulations forced from the lips of
his wife.

Lady Mar gazed with a weird frown on the lovely form of
Helen, as she wound her exquisitely turned arms round the earl in filial
tenderness. Her bosom, heaving in the snowy whiteness of virgin purity; her
face, radiant with the softest blooms of youth; all seemed to frame an object
which malignant fiends had conjured up to blast her stepdame's hope. "Wallace
will behold these charms!" cried her distracted spirit to herself, "and then,
where am I?"

While her thoughts thus followed each other, she
unconsciously darted looks on Helen, which, if an evil eye had any bewitching
power, would have withered all her beauties. At one of these portentous moments,
the glad eyes of Helen met her glance. She started with horror. It made her
remember how she had been betrayed, and all that she had suffered from Soulis.
But she could not forget that she had also been rescued; and with that blessed
recollection, the image of her preserver rose before her. At this gentle idea,
her alarmed countenance took a softer expression; and, tenderly sighing, she
turned to her father's question of "How she came to be with Lady Ruthven, when
he had been taught by Lord Andrew to believe her safe at St. Fillan's?"

"Yes," cried Murray, throwing herself on a seat beside her,
"I found in your letter to Sir William Wallace, that you had been betrayed from
your asylum by some traitor Scot; and but for the fullness of my joy at our
present meeting, I should have inquired the name of the villian!"

Lady Mar felt a deadly sickness at her heart, on hearing
that Sir William Wallace was already so far acquainted with her daughter as to
have received a letter from her; and in amazed despair, she prepared to listen
to what she expected would bring a death-stroke to her hopes. They had met-but
how?-where? They wrote to each other. Then, far indeed had proceeded that
communication of hearts, which was now the aim of her life-and she was undone!
Helen glanced at the face of Lady mar, and observing its changes, regarded them
as corroborations of her having been the betrayer. "If conscience disturbs you
thus," thought Helen, "let it rend your heart, and perhaps remorse may follow!"

As the tide of success seemed so full for the patriot
Scots, Helen no longer feared that her cousin would rashly seek a precarious
vengeance on the traitor Soulis, when he might probably soon have an opportunity
of making it certain at the head of an army. She therefore commenced her
narrative from the time of Murray's leaving her at the priory, and continued it
to the hour in which she had met her father, a prisoner in the streets of
Stirling. As she proceeded, the indignation of the earl and of Murray against
Soulis became vehement. The nephew was full of immediate personal revenge. But
the father, with arguments similar to those which had suggested themselves to
his daughter, calmed the lover's rage, for Murray now felt that fire as well as
a kinsman's; and reseated himself with repressed, though burning resentment, to
listen to the remainder of her relation.

The quaking conscience of Lady mar did indeed vary her
cheeks with a thousand dyes, when, as Helen repeated part of her conversation
with Macgregor's wife, Murray abruptly said, "Surely that woman could name the
traitor who betrayed us into the hands of our enemies! Did she not hint it?"

Helen cast down her eyes, that even a glance might not
overwhelm with insupportable shame the already trembling countess. Lady Mar saw
that she was acquainted with her guilt, and expecting no more mercy than she
knew she would show to Helen in the like circumstances, she hastily rose from
her chair, internally vowing vengeance against her triumphant daughter and
hatred of all mankind. But Helen thought she might have so erred, from a wife's
alarm for the safety of the husband she professed to doat on; and this dutiful
daughter determined never to accuse her.

While all the furies raged in the breast of the guilty
woman, Helen simply answered, "Lord Soulis would be weak as he is vile, to trust
a secret of that kind with a servant;" then hurried on to the relation of
subsequent events. The countess breathed again; and almost deceiving herself
with the idea that Helen was indeed ignorant of her treachery, listened with
emotions of another kind, when she heard of the rescue of her daughter-in-law.
She saw Wallace in that brave act! But as Helen, undesignedly to herself, passed
over the parts in their conversation which had most interested her, and never
named the graces of his person, Lady mar thought, that to have viewed Wallace
with so little notice would have been impossible; and therefore was glad of such
a double conviction, that he and her daughter had never met, which seemed
verified when Helen said that the unknown chief had promised to join his arms
with those of Wallace.

Murray had observed Helen while she spoke, with an
impression at his heart that made it pause. Something in this interview had
whispered to him what he had never dreamed before-that she was dearer to him
than fifty thousand cousins. And while the blood flushed and retreated in the
complexion of Helen, and her downcast eyes refused to show what was passing
there, while she hastily ran over the circumstances of her acquaintance with the
stranger knight, Murray's own emotions declared the secret of hers; and with a
lip as pale as her own, he said, "But where is this brave man? He cannot have
yet joined us, for surely he would have told Wallace or myself that he came from
you?"

"I warned him not to do so," replied she, "for fear that
your indignation against my enemies, my dear cousin, might have precipitated you
into dangers to be incurred for our country only."

"Then, if he had joined us," replied Murray, rising from
his seat, "you will probably soon known who he is. To-morrow morning Sir William
Wallace will enter the citadel, attended by his principal knights; and in that
gallant company you must doubtless discover the man who had laid such
obligations on us all by your preservation."

Murray's feelings told him that glad should he be, if the
utterance of that obligation would repay it!

Helen herself knew not how to account for the agitation
which shook her whenever she adverted to her unknown preserver. At the time of
the hermit's friend (the good lay brother), having brought her to Alloa, when
she explained to Lady Ruthven the cause of her strange arrival, she had then
told her story with composure, till she mentioned her deliverer; but in that
moment, for the first time she felt a confusion which disordered the animation
with which she described his patriotism and his bravery. But it was natural, she
thought, that gratitude for a recent benefit should make her heart beat high. It
was something like the enthusiasm she had felt for Wallace on the rescue of her
father, and she was satisfied. But a few days of quiet at Alloa had recovered
her health from the shock it had received in the recent scenes, and she proposed
to her aunt to send some trusty messenger to inform the imprisoned earl at
Dumbarton of her happy refuge; and Lady Ruthven in return had urged the
probability that the messenger would be intercepted, and so her asylum be
discovered, saying, "Let it alone, till this knight of yours, by performing his
word, calls you to declare his honorable deeds. Till then, Lord Mar, ignorant of
your danger, needs no assurance of your safety."

This casual reference to the knight had then made the
tranquilized heart of Helen renew its throbbings, and turning from her aunt with
an acquiescing reply, she retired to her own apartment to quell the unusual and
painful blushes she felt burning on her cheeks. Why she should feel thus she
could not account, "unless," said she to herself, "I fear that my suspicion may
be guessed at; and should my words or looks betray the royal Bruce to any harm,
that moment of undersigned ingratitude would be the last of my life."

This explanation seemed ample to herself. And henceforth
avoiding all mention of her preserver in her conversations with Lady Ruthven,
she had confined the subject to her own breast; and thinking that she thought of
him more by her intention to speak of him less, she wondered not that whenever
she was alone his image immediately rose in her mind, his voice seemed to sound
in her ears, and even as the summer air wafted its soft fragrance over her
cheek, she would turn as if she felt that breath which had so gently brushed her
to repose. She would then start and sigh, and repeat his words to herself, but
all was serene in her bosom. For it seemed as if the contemplation of so much
loveliness of soul in so noble a form, soothed instead of agitated her heart.
"What a king will he be?" thought she; "with what transport would the virtuous
Wallace set the Scottish crown on so noble a brow."

Such were her meditations and feelings, when she was
brought a prisoner to Stirling. And when she heard of the victories of Wallace,
she could not but think that the brave arm of her knight was there, and that he,
with the renowned champion of Scotland, would fly, on the receipt of her letter,
to Stirling, there to repeat the valiant deeds of Dumbarton. The first blast of
the Scottish trumpet under the walls found her, as she had said, upon her knees,
and kept her there, for hardly with any intermission, with fast and prayer did
she kneel before the altar of Heaven-till the voice of Andrew Murray at midnight
called her to freedom and to happiness.

Wallace, and perhaps her nameless hero with him, had again
conquered! His idea dwelt in her heart and faltered on her tongue; and yet, in
reciting the narrative of her late sufferings to her father, when she came to
the mentioning of the stranger's conduct to her-with an apprehensive
embarrassment she felt her growing emotions as she drew near the subject; and,
hurrying over the event, she could only excuse herself for such new
perturbations by supposing that the former treason of Lady Mar now excited her
alarm, with fear she should fix it on a new object. Turning cold at an idea so
pregnant with horror, she hastily passed from the agitating theme to speak of De
Valence and the respect with which he had treated her during her imprisonment.
His courtesy had professed to deny nothing to her wishes except her personal
liberty and any conference with her parents or aunt. Her father's life, he
declared it was altogether out of his power to grant. He might suspend the
sentence, but he could not abrogate it.

"Yes," cried the earl, "though false and inflexible, I must
not accuse him of having been so barbarous in his tyranny as Cressingham. For it
was not until De Valence was taken prisoner that Joanna and I were divided. Till
then we were lodged in decent apartments, but on that event Cressingham tore us
from each other, and threw us into different dungeons. My sister Janet I never
saw since the hour we were separated in the street of Stirling until the awful
moment in which we met on the roof of this castle-the moment when I expected to
behold her and my wife die before my eyes!"

Helen now learned, for the first time, the base cruelties
which had been exercised on her father and his family since the capture of De
Valence. She had been exempted from sharing them by the fears of Cressingham,
who, knowing that the English earl had particular views with regard to her,
durst not risk offending him by outraging one whom he had declared himself
determined to protect.

During part of this conversation, Murray withdrew to bring
Lady Ruthven and her son to share the general joy of full domestic reunion. The
happy Edwin and his mother having embraced these dear relatives with yet more
tender affections yearning in their bosoms, accompanied Murray to the door of
the barbican, which contained Lord Ruthven. They entered on the wings of
conjugal and filial love; but the for once pensive Lord Andrew, with a slow and
musing step, returned into the castle to see that all was safely disposed for
the remainder of the night.

* The arms of Hilton are, argent, two bars azure. The
charge on those of Blenkinsopp are three wheat-sheaves; crest, a lion rampant,
grasping a rose. The ruins of the patrimonial castles of these two ancient
barons are still to be seen in the north of England. The author's revered mother
was a descendant from the latter venerable name, united with that of the brave
and erudite race of Adamson, of further north.